


In The Flaming Sun

by writerwithoutstories



Series: Long Live The Mechanisms [2]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Multi, and then go off to commit arson, as ashes would have wanted, ashes dies and the rest of them are sad, turns out i'm incapable of writing anything but dttm angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:21:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerwithoutstories/pseuds/writerwithoutstories
Summary: It feels strange to think of the steady flame that was Ashes O’Reilly finally extinguished.
Relationships: Ashes O'Reilly & The Mechanisms Ensemble
Series: Long Live The Mechanisms [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2132157
Kudos: 14





	In The Flaming Sun

**Author's Note:**

> i swear i was not gonna write a sequel but sometimes you're listening to the mechs on shuffle at three in the morning and then elysian fields comes on directly after lucky sevens and then this happens.  
> if you're not familiar with the other fic i wrote in this series, the general concept is that through their mechanisms the crew is all connected and so they can feel it when the others die? i would really recommend reading the other one as well as i reference some stuff in here though  
> title is from redeath by, take a wild guess, the mechanisms

Time is a strange thing, for the Mechanisms. They move through it not one way or the other, sometimes appearing here, sometimes appearing there. 3000 years in the future ago, they say, and it's just half a lie. Only some creative exaggeration.  
  
Jonny used to have a theory that they were wherever and whenever the narrative demanded them to be. The universe writes such splendid tales, it would be a shame if there was no one there to remember them. There hasn’t been much tale-collecting on the Aurora lately. It feels wrong, with their narrator gone.  
  
When Brian feels the electricity build up in his stomach, a feeling eerily familiar even if he's only experienced it once, he's torn between fear and resignation.  
  
Jonny has been gone for... some time. None of them are interested in denying the fact that their end is coming, Brian least of all. Despite that he thinks he can’t be faulted for wanting just a little bit longer.  
  
Looking up at Marius standing across from him in the kitchen, continuing to happily gather ingredients into both his arms, Brian starts to relax at first. Maybe seven of them still remain.  
  
But deep down he knows it can't be true. There are ways to go unnoticed, of course, especially in a ship as vast as theirs. But they've each found that they prefer not to, since Jonny went away.  
  
(None of them ever use the word death. They think it, some with annoyance, some with sadness, some with apprehension. Never truly with fear. It is hard to still fear death after all the things they’ve seen. Their companions’ deaths are more important to them than their own. It still doesn't feel right, using the word. As though they're trying to hold onto the fragments of their supposed immortality.)  
  
So, when Ashes doesn't show up for dinner (they call it dinner, at least) later, he knows. The others don't seem to yet. They didn't notice. Brian ponders this for a while before deciding that nothing in his far-too-long existence has ever made sense. The Mechanisms have set rule after rule for themselves and proceeded to break every single one. Who were they to dictate that their deaths would be different?

(Later it will make more sense, when they find out what happened. Time is a puzzling thing that no one can ever truly claim to understand.)

Then Ivy suddenly looks up, panic visible behind her widened eyes. She throws her hands up to shield her head - an impossible task, seeing as what she is trying to deflect comes from the inside of her brain.  
  
The rest catch on quickly, sending each other incredulous glances. Raphaella gives her nearest feather an experimental tug and flinches, Tim unfocuses and refocuses his eyes. Nothing. Nothing, yet still they know with absolute certainty that another of their number is gone.  
  
With Jonny it was a shock. a wake-up call. It reminded Ivy of the City, their famed hubris, a fatal pride. When you think you're above it all, invincible and unreachable, you don't even stop to consider that such petty mortal concepts might apply to you. The Mechanisms were reminded of their own hubris all too acutely when they lost their first mate.  
  
Nastya? Nastya has been Out for longer than they actually knew her when they realise she has finally let go. Missing her has become a steady undercurrent that at times almost feels as though it’s powering the ship.

None of them expected Ashes to be the next to go. They were always there, calm no matter what storm the rest of them had to weather. Where Jonny was always a ticking time bomb and Nastya always just a little too withdrawn, it feels strange to think of the steady flame that was Ashes O’Reilly finally extinguished.

For some time, they just sit there. Marius stubbornly refuses to stop eating, gaze fixed on the plate before him. At one point he accidentally chips off the end of the fork he's holding. He doesn't care.  
  
There is no need for stories and accolades this time. Ashes is as fresh in all their minds as they ever were, having been around and running the ship until they suddenly weren't anymore. It does not yet occur to any of them to wonder why and how they went.  
  
Their amused smile from behind a deck of cards. The way they would tip their hat towards any new acquaintance. Snarky remarks made where the microphone couldn't pick them up, and sometimes where it could.  
  
After a while, Tim mutters something, low and bitter, and gets up. His shoulders are pushed back, posture rigid, hand already on his gun.  
  
It has been a long time. All of them know it's not very healthy, what they do, but it has been a long time. Trying to be better seems pointless, especially now.  
  
It happens much like last time. How ironic, that after all the Mechanisms went through, it is death that should bring them together.  
  
Where Jonny's death served to make them seek each other out, though, Ashes' death has them seek solitude. One by one, they all follow Tim out of the room. Raphaella to her lab. Marius towards the med bay. Ivy to the archive. Brian to the bridge. The Toy Soldier decides to pay the octokittens a visit.  
  
They will each stay there until they feel the final confirmation, at which point they will wait it out another few days, just to be safe. Ivy and Brian find each other again sooner than the others, but eventually they are all back.  
  
It's the Toy Soldier's idea. A funeral. The others scoff at first, more on instinct than anything else, but when Raphaella walks over and proclaims she thinks it's a great idea, supported by Marius, the rest follow suit.  
  
They won't allow themselves to be separated over something as trivial as this.  
  
Call it luck, call it narrative convenience, there's a small planet nearby. Uninhabited, though none of them would have cared all too much if it had been. Brian's switch is clearly visible, flipped by his own request to Ends Justify Means.  
  
It is Brian, in the end, who lights the first match. It's tiny but casts a vivid glow into the surrounding dark, and the flame it sparks is everything but small. Match by match, they go on like this, until soon the entire planet is ablaze. It's less a mourning cry than it is a vainglorious celebration. All around them fire cracks and whips and tears and they stand, letting it make them feel alive for possibly the last time.  
  
When they're back on the Aurora, the wild atmosphere does not die down. It's like they're drunk on memory and grief and their impending ends. Brian, back on Means Justify Ends, has a hard time keeping Raphaella from setting even more things on fire, even though the Toy Soldier is enthusiastically volunteering.

Tim does not join them. He leans against the doorframe for a while, smiling out at them, eyes unintelligible as ever. The calm that radiates off him would be unsettling, so unlike the energetic man they know, if the others were not too caught up in their own mournful euphoria.

Tim thinks. He thinks about Jonny, about Ashes, about the rest of the crew still in front of him. About Bertie. Most of all he thinks about death. Then, step slow and determined, he turns and walks out of the room.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> as you have probably guessed by the last paragraph, next up is tim! i'm shuffling the order of the deaths around a bit here, mainly because i just have a very specific order envisioned that kinda feels more natural to me, so. yeah.


End file.
